Games You Beat in 2022: PXoD's Bogus Journey

[danielpholt]

Couldn't find a topic for this so I made one...

 

The Forgotten City

 

With peoples GOTY lists coming out, I've spent a good chunk of time listening to people talk about how this game isn't to be missed, so I found a few hours (5-6) to give it another shot, and much like Outer Wilds a few years previous (another time-loop game) it grabbed me hard on the second attempt. I'm not sure why that is, but I think its got more to do with my own mental state than the game itself. 

 

As for the game, it's a genuinely interesting game with a time-loop mechanic that not only works well, but for the most part doesn't fall foul of the same issues that something like Twelve Minutes, or even (one of my favs) Outer Wilds does; the time-loop as a mechanic doesn't impede your enjoyment, or turn things into a repetitive slog.

 

The ending has an awful lot to do, but for the most part it handles it well enough. It's a bit corny, but all in all, I enjoyed it enough. 

 

It's one XBOX Gamepass, and I definitely recommend it. 

 

[Mister Jack]

What is it with time loops in games lately? Seems to be a trend.

[TheMightyEthan]

I think it was a weird coincidence, honestly. But yeah, there were a bunch this year.

[MetalCaveman]

Halo Infinite

 

Definitively ended up enjoying this one way more than I expected, mostly thanks to the gameplay, which carries this game, and carries it HARD.

 

Lack of environment variety (both outdoors and indoors) an underwhelming way to deal with the events of Halo 5, most vehicles feeling like they're made of paper, etc. None of this ended up bothering me as much as it would have if the gameplay wasn't so freaking good.

 

The open world stuff was... AAA Open world stuff, lots of icons, lots of things to do, though to be fair, way less than you average Ubisoft game, with its trillion icons on the map lol, most felt pointless beyond the FOBs, would have preferred upgrade points to be tied to the HVT stuff, make it feel more relevant, specially since the weapons you get from those objectives weren't really worth it IMO, except for the rocket launcher that tracked targets, that thing was awesome. Would have been cool too if you could capture the large outposts and have UNSC forces occupy and defend them, or just having marines patrolling and fighting the banished out in the open world, get them more equipment as time goes on, hell, have them use scorpions as well or something. Grizzlies as an unlockable vehicle would have been cool. Obviously it can't happen, but Infinite would have benefited massively from a Nemesis System kind of thing.

 

While not a fan of how they dealt with the Guardians stuff, I'm actually looking forward to seeing where the story goes from here.

 

Spoiler

Can the endless control time in some way?

 

Looked up the legendary ending and Despondent Pyre says "time is not a construct we can control" to which the Grand Edict replies "and we can't allow it to be theirs", does this mean that time's up for the endless or that they are THAT powerful? Offensive Bias being mentioned was fun.

 

Regardless, a life form that can't be destroyed even by Halo seems like it'd be a fun threat to deal with, can't wait for them to just start the sequel/dlc with "... And then the endless died, all of them, here's some cutscenes of how it happened, whatever, moving on" lol. 

 

Now that I think about it... What did happen to the guardians? Are they dormant? Did they go boom boom when Cortana sacrificed herself?

 

Anyway, complaints aside, the gameplay was awesome, loved it, makes this game worth playing, and now I'm kinda looking forward to whatever comes next.

 

Another thing I realised:

 

Spoiler

Atriox was right, he says during your first fight something about his face being the last thing you'd see, and what do you now, his face IS the last thing you see, before the game resumes that is.

 

The Weapon was awesome too. Best character in the game.

Edited January 10, 2022 by MetalCaveman

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, I do wish that

 

Spoiler

rather than the Cortana sacrifice happening off screen, she had been alive the whole time, trying to tell you she's realized her mistake, etc, and you're trying to carry out your mission with The Weapon because you can't trust Cortana anymore, and then Cortana ends up sacrificing herself at the end to stop the Harbinger. Same basic plot, but I feel like it would have come across more powerfully.

 

All in all, though, I think they did a decent job considering the shit sandwich they left themselves at the end of Halo 5.

 

Spoiler

I really really hope The Weapon doesn't name herself Cortana though, I feel like that completely undercuts the whole "you know she won't be me, right?" theme they carried over from Halo 4 (which actually had a really good plot).

 

There's a fan theory though that she'll actually name herself Joyeuse, which is much better. Cortana is named after the ceremonial sword Curtana, used in the coronations of British monarchs, and according to legend Joyeuse was Charlemagne's sword which was forged from the same ore as Curtana (and Durandal, which is also the name of the AI from Marathon). So a nice little nod without undercutting themselves.

 

[MetalCaveman]

If the story had been like that it'd would have been so much better.

 

Spoiler

I thought for sure she would say right there and then that she'd chosen Cortana as her name, would like to see Joyeouse, or some variation of it, that'd be nice.

 

[TheMightyEthan]

I really thought they were going to do that too, and was already cringing in anticipation.

[TheMightyEthan]

Scarlet Nexus

 

Anime kids save the world through the power of nakama!

 

This game was great, it's exactly the kind of Persona-lite game I like. Mysterious aliens periodically rain down on the world, and you are a member of a force of  teenagers with paranormal abilities whose job it is to protect humanity, and the plot is exactly batshit enough to live up to that premise. The combat is fun, with a surprising amount of variability between everyone's powers. You can't switch characters, you only ever control the MC (you choose between two options at the beginning), who is telekinetic, but there's an ability called SAS which allows you to temporarily borrow your allies' powers. By the end of the game you feel like a complete badass, switching rapidly between regular attacks, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, hypervelocity, teleportation, etc (there are 9 total powers in the game). It felt great.

 

I called it Persona-lite because there is an extremely simple social sim element, that involves building your relationships with your teammates to unlock higher tiers of SAS abilities. It's obviously not shooting for something on the level of Persona, but it knows that, and doesn't try to be anything more than what it is. I liked it enough that I'm probably going to do another playthrough on the other character.

 

Overall it is quite well put together, with everything working together to create something cohesive. It's not trying to be a steak dinner, but it's a damn good hamburger.

 

Grade: B+

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Down in Bermuda was short and definitely had mobile game vibes but I completed it on Switch so I'm counting it.

Glad it wasn't too long as it was not great. It barely qualifies as a puzzle game, often just pulling a lever to reveal a button that reveals another button etc., and the story was feather light so it's not like they were just there to move that along.

[TheMightyEthan]

No game shame here, if you count it then it counts!

[Mister Jack]

Monster Hunter Rise

 

So this is kind of dubious in terms of whether I "beat" it. I've not nearly finished all the game's content, but I killed this game's flagship monster and saw the credits so I'm going to consider that good enough to at least post about it here even if I still have lots left to do. I've played the game for about 25 hours so far, which isn't much time to see the credits for a Monster Hunter game but it's long enough that I know how the game works and how I feel about it. 

 

This is by far the most accessible Monster Hunter game yet, so if the others were too complex for you, including World, then this might be easier for you to swallow. Kamura Village is smaller than Astera in MHW, but that also means it's easier to navigate and most of the important NPCs you need are all right there in the same spot. Quests are divided into two types: village quests which are strictly a solo affair and hub quests, which are multiplayer focused. Solo hunting, while not a cakewalk, is still easier than it's ever been before thanks to the fact you get to take along not one but two NPC companions to help you in fights and you can mix and match between palicoes and palamutes. 

Speaking of which, there are four main features in this game that make it different from the others. First are the palamutes, which are giant dogs you can ride around to traverse the map faster. For better or worse, you no longer have to track monsters to know where they are on the map so you can easily hop on your palamute and ride over to the fight in just a minute or two after spawning. Palamutes also help you in fights and can be given special equipment to assist with healing, buffing, or debuffing. When you also bring along a palico or a second palamute, just having extra targets to get the monster's attention can make your life a lot easier when you need to heal or sharpen. You're only allowed to bring one companion if you are doing multiplayer, but that number used to be zero so in a full hunt you'll have four hunters and four pets all going after the same monster, which can admittedly get chaotic. I'm hoping Capcom patches in the ability to turn off the attack effects for other hunters so there's less flashy anime shit going on during a multiplayer hunt.

 

The second new feature is the wirebug, which is pretty much a grappling hook except it's a beetle that shoots wire. What sets this apart from normal grappling hooks is that the beetle doesn't have to attach to anything to be used. You can use it like a normal hookshot too, but since beetles have wings you can also use your wirebug to swing or launch yourself no matter where you're standing, which is great for setting up aerial attacks when in previous games you'd need to find a platform to jump from in order to use them. I can't stress enough what a game changer this is, especially since aerial attacks are often the best attacks for many of the game's weapons. There's a short cooldown on the bug after shooting it twice so you can't spam it endlessly, but it's still pretty generous. Wirebugs can also be used for special weapon based attacks that do mounting damage. What is mounting damage? Well that leads into the third new feature.

 

Monster riding! This is far from the first game where you can mount the monsters, but in previous titles mounting was mostly limited to stabbing them until they fell down or making them run headfirst into a wall for big stun damage. In this game, the wirebugs are used like reins so that when you mount a monster you can actually control its movement and its attacks, which means you can make it attack other monsters. Once you've done that, the two monsters are likely to start fighting with each other for a while which not only does a ton of damage to both monsters but it also creates lots of material drops and gives you precious time to heal, buff, or sharpen while they're distracted. It's super satisfying when you can pull it off, and as long as you remember to use attacks with mounting damage it's not too hard to do.

 

Last but not least is the last big new feature: switch skills. In Monster Hunter World and every other MH game I tried the weapons all have their own gameplay style but for each one there's usually an optimal flowchart when it comes to which attacks and combos to use. You'll probably find an attack string that works for you and then use it for the rest of the game. In Rise, however, every weapon has three attacks that can be switched out for a different attack, which can completely change how you use the weapon. For example, I went through the game using the sword and shield. The default combo for the circle button on my controller was a series of shield bashes, which is great for stunning monsters if you hit them in the head. However, you can switch this combo out for one that does multiple stabbing attacks, and since I was using a poison sword this meant multiple hits that all stacked poison on the monster. From what I can tell, there's no universal "right" or "best" way to set up your switch skills for each weapon. It all depends on your personal preferred gameplay style and even then I could see myself switching them up again depending on the monster I'm fighting. It adds a lot of strategy without being too complicated for newbies to grasp.

 

Rise might not be as big or as pretty as World, being a port of a Switch game and all, but it's definitely the easiest to jump into and do a few quick hunts when you have some spare time. I am totally addicted and plan on getting my rank up as high as I can so I'll be ready when the Sunbreak expansion comes out.

Edited January 21, 2022 by Mister Jack

[Mister Jack]

Pokemon Legends: Arceus

 

Yeah I played it early. This game isn't out yet so I'm going to put all gameplay related comments in spoilers in case anyone wants to go in completely blind. I won't talk about the story much either other than to say that it's fine. I mean, it's pretty basic for an RPG story and there's still no voice acting so you shouldn't expect much but compared to the handholding insult to your intelligence that Sw/Sh was it's practically Shakespeare. The main story took me about 17 hours to beat but the postgame/true final ending grind is going to take much, much longer so I figured I'd just post about it now. Now to discuss the gameplay.

 

Spoiler

This game cuts out a lot of the bullshit I usually hate about previous mainline Pokemon titles. What a difference it makes to actually battle on the field and not have to go to a separate screen. Also, a lot of the tedious battle messages have been condensed or done away with so there isn't nearly as much forced reading. POKEMON CAN SWAP OUT THEIR LEARNED MOVES NOW. I can't believe it took this long to implement but I'm glad it's finally here. You also aren't forced to battle every single Pokemon that you want to catch. If it's a docile species or you manage to sneak up on it then you can just toss a poke ball and if you're lucky you'll catch it right away. This cuts down on so much of the tedium of dealing with wild Pokemon. It's not totally brain dead either because there is strategy involved in sneaking up on Pokemon, using bait, trying to get them from behind for an increased capture rate, or even pelting them with objects to stun them if they see you. Of course, if all else fails and a Pokemon sees you and becomes aggressive, poke balls will fail to work until you either stun it with a thrown object or battle it the old fashioned way. It's a good compromise between purists who insist on wild pokemon battles and people like me who would rather be able to catch them efficiently. You can also manually choose when to evolve Pokemon now as opposed to having to hit B every time they level up. Thank god.

 

This is probably the hardest game in the Pokemon series. That isn't saying much, I know. Pokemon games are usually piss easy and you can sleepwalk through them, and I'm not saying this is "the Dark Souls of mon games" or anything like that. I only team wiped two or three times but I finished quite a few battles by the skin of my teeth with only one Pokemon left. The AI here is generally much better about picking attacks that are super effective against you. Not only that, but battles are not always 1-on-1. If you're up against multiple trainers at once or you rush into a group of 3+ wild Pokemon then guess what: you're fighting them all at the same time. You really want to avoid this whenever possible because chances are you're not going to be overleveled in this game like you are in the others. This one is actually balanced properly and most of the time new encounters were actually above my starter's level. I actually appreciated this. If the game was too easy it would be boring.

 

I'm going to clear up a common misconception right now. This is not a true open-world game. It's more like Monster Hunter in that you get your town hub to prepare for missions and then you embark on an expedition to one of five huge maps where you explore, look for Pokemon to catch, and do your story content. This never bothered me but I'm used to it. Even if it's not a true open world it still feels much more open with a lot more freedom than Sw/Sh had. In addition to catching Pokemon you also forage for crafting supplies, seek out collectibles, and do side missions. It's not super in-depth but it gives you the bare minimum of what you should expect from a so-called "open world" game. I have to admit that even if it was nothing special, I was still having fun whenever I sent out one of my Pokemon to break an ore deposit or shake a tree for its fruit. One of my favorite things about the map is just traversing it. HMs are a thing of the past and you don't need an HM slave to use things like surf or fly or anything like that. Instead, you earn access to special dedicated Pokemon who are specifically for the purpose of moving around the map. You have Pokemon for running, climbing, swimming, and other things like that. Calling them is as simple as pressing the + button and they instantly appear without any wait. If you move from one kind of terrain onto another it'll even automatically switch you onto the right Pokemon so you can keep moving seamlessly. It might not be realistic but I prefer this much, MUCH more over having to wait for them to show up every time. 

 

By far the biggest change to the Pokemon formula is getting the trainer actively involved in battles. While Pokemon vs. Pokemon battles play out pretty similar to the way you're used to, albeit with the option of strong/agile modifiers to attacks, when wild Pokemon see you running around on the field they will often attack you directly, which really helps to demonstrate just how dangerous a world full of superpowered creatures can really be. The trainer doesn't have an HP bar or anything but instead has regenerating health kind of like in Call of Duty. As long as you're not being actively targeted by a Pokemon you'll slowly recover back to normal, but if you get hit too many times you'll faint, and fainting hurts because instead of losing money you drop a bunch of items. Pouch space is pretty limited in this game and expanding it gets quite expensive so you're likely to only be carrying your most precious and valuable items with you most of the time. Passing out and losing my rare candies stung pretty hard. Use it or lose it, folks. Technically online players can retrieve your dropped items and return them to you for a special currency reward but I'm playing before the release date so yeah, that wasn't an option for me. One cool way the new trainer mechanic is used is for actual boss battles. Some Pokemon can't be battled normally right away but instead have to be stunned or sedated with throwable objects so you can give yourself an opening to send out your Pokemon. Naturally, the boss Pokemon will be attacking you the entire time you're trying to create this opening. These battles could actually be pretty fun and I wish there were more of them. 

 

Okay so that's all good but the game isn't perfect. First of all, it's ugly. Ugly ugly ugly. I knew it would be ugly, it's a GameFreak game, but just because I expect it doesn't mean it gets a free pass. Muddy textures and pop-ins are abound. However, I will say that battles look better than usual simply because your Pokemon will actually, you know, physically approach the other Pokemon to do a melee attack. That's a pet peeve of mine with the other games. My other big gripe is the grind that sometimes rears its head. There are no gym leaders in this game. Instead you are given survey ranks and you increase this rank by doing Pokemon research. In addition to catching each Pokemon, they also have tasks like catching them in certain ways or seeing them use certain moves that help raise your research level, and each rank you earn works like a gym badge in that it gives you the ability to command stronger Pokemon. I like this mechanic in theory and having to observe and experiment with each Pokemon to fully complete their Pokedex entry made me feel like an actual researcher. The problem is that new maps are locked behind higher ranks and if you're not high enough when you get to certain points in the story then you can't even set foot in the new area until you get that research level up. Granted, if you know what you're doing it doesn't take too terribly long. Like I said, I finished the story in 17 hours. Still, I hate whenever a game's story gives you sudden roadblocks like this and force you to do menial tasks to proceed. I know that researching Pokemon is the whole point of this game but I should be able to do it at my own pace. Oh, and held items are also gone. That didn't really bother me but it might bother you, who knows. 

 

All in all, this one took me by surprise, especially considering how much I hate GameFreak lately. There is definitely room for improvement and innovation but if we think of this as the first step toward the future of the franchise then I might actually find it in my heart to get excited for Pokemon games again. With some fine-tuning and polish the next Legends game has the potential to be an all-time classic.

Edited January 23, 2022 by Mister Jack

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Sounds interesting but it's not quite tempted me to give Pokemon another go. Hopefully there's a demo so I can have a go but I think you've saved me fifty quid.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Aragami. I quite enjoyed it. I didn't play it pure stealth as I just want to get through some of my backlog so was happy to kill anyone that spotted me rather than restart a section. It felt fairly low budget, maybe a bit like a PS2 remake, with Sly Cooper type open levels and angular graphics. The story was fine, the "twist" was so obvious from very early on I'm not sure you could call it such but I'm happy to have played it.

[TheMightyEthan]

I've got Arceus on my Gamefly queue. I'm not interested enough to buy it, but I'll give it a shot.

[TheMightyEthan]

Quantum Break

 

This game did a lot of stuff right, but it just couldn't bring it all together. Overall I liked it, but it could have been so much more. The TV show cutscenes were an interesting idea that just didn't work, but I do respect that they tried. The combat was fine, the powers were cool when everything came together just right, but a lot of the encounters didn't seem like they were designed to really make good use of it. There were also a lot of threads left dangling, and not in a sequel-teasing kind of way (though there was that too), but more in a "we just kind of forgot about this" kind of way. Violations of the principal of Chekov's Gun. I'm assuming some of that is due to the branching paths and the way the different decisions interact, and maybe if I'd made different choices some of those things might have come back, but that's not what happened so it just felt weird. The story was compelling throughout, and the time manipulation stuff was awesome, but it had me going "but what about...?" about several things at the end.

 

All in all, there's a lot of great stuff in here, but the whole is definitely less than the sum of its parts.

 

Grade: B-

[MetalCaveman]

Dark Souls 2 Scholar of the First Sin

 

Still the weakest of the Soulsborne games for me, there's something about the combat that lacks the finesse and responsiveness of the other games, not to mention that the updates to enemy spawns means that before the game felt a tad too easy, now it can be downright frustrating to go through certain areas, ambushes, tons of enemies, really strong enemies in some of the early areas, all that plus weapons that break after a few swings can make for a very annoying experience, somewhat alleviated by the limited spawns enemies have, kill enough of them enough times and they stop spawning, still takes some time (and potentially many deaths) to do so.

 

Then there's the world itself, the Black Gulch is hell, specially because in SotFS they made it so the stupid poison statues reset after using a bonfire, before you could do a run to get rid of those, heal, and go back to deal with just the enemies, now, they're back every time you rest. The petrifying rats in the pit and other areas are a nightmare to deal with too.

 

In terms of the DLC, I kinda rushed through Crown of the Sunken King, as soon as I saw that everything was poison and that there were a lot of narrow walkways and bottomless pits, I just ran to the boss, went back later to explore a bit more, not a fan of this one.

 

Crown of the Old Iron King was more fun, the Smelter Wedge and soul fragments were a nice mechanic, and of course, being able to get the Fume Ultra Greatsword was neat. I kept waiting for something to knock me to my death while traversing the giant chains that connect the towers, thankfully there was none of that.

 

Finally, Crown of the Ivory King was my favourite, being able to explore an ancient ruined castle that's covered in ice and snow was the best part, a drastic change from the environments found in the other DLCs and in the base game, the boss fight for this one was also the best. In general, my favourite DLC, except for the Frigid Outskirts, that place can burn in hell, a constant blizzard that blocks your view, crystal reindeer that shoot lightning and always blindside you, not a single bonfire (that I could find), that place just sucks.

 

Finally, the ending, the original DS2 ending was underwhelming, this one adds another ending that is much more satisfying, both because there's an actual choice to make and as the payoff if

 

Spoiler

you talk to Aldia, the titular Scholar of the First Sin all the times it shows up.

 

 

In spite of everything I didn't like about it, it's still an enjoyable game, kinda want to go and get the achievements I'm missing, iirc I'm missing some covenants and NPC equipment.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. I enjoyed it and didn't miss Nathan Drake. In fact I think I preferred the game without him. I liked the length of it too at just under 10 hours. I got very fed up with the shooting in the previous games but there was a lot less of it in this one and they mostly were over quickly. I still think they could make a similar game, without any fighting at all. It may be one of the things that's put me off gaming a bit recently that I'm just a bit sick of the fact that so many games are based around violence.

[TheMightyEthan]

I 100% agree, Lost Legacy is my favorite Uncharted game by a wide margin. I didn't even think any of the games were good until Uncharted 4, and then I ended up really liking LL.

[Thursday Next]

I completely agree @TheFlyingGerbil, would love an Uncharted that is exploring, puzzle solving, and running away from boulders, floods, collapsing temples... etc. with no shooty-bangs whatsoever.

[toxicitizen]

God of War

 

Well, I was hoping to get more out of this one by playing it on PC than I did on PlayStation Now and I'm happy to say that I did. I did end up setting the render scale to 75% (so it rendered at 1080p upscaled to 1440p) so that I would be closer to 60fps but it was still an experience insanely more pleasant than the low-res, choppy, blurry, compressed mess that was playing it on PS Now.

 

That being said, I still think this is a deeply flawed game. A pretty good game but deeply flawed all the same. I just think the combat in this is ill-conceived at best. There isn't any specific aspect of it that couldn't work but when you combine the over-the-shoulder camera, the fact that all the camera trickery they use means the camera has to stay way the fuck up on Kratos' back all the time (there is no FOV option in the PC version for this reason) and some of the baffling enemy design choices they've made... I think you end up with something lesser than the sum of its parts.

 

Most of the time it works just fine, especially in the critical path where you're rarely challenged all that much. Except for the dark elves. Fuck those guys. They fucking suck and I hated every single fight with them. But really it's in the optional/post-game content that things reached a breaking point for me.

 

So in Bayonetta the enemies are programmed to not shoot projectiles when they're off-camera. You don't really notice it if you don't know about it but it's a really smart way to avoid needlessly frustrating the player because being hit by shit you can't see coming isn't fun and it wouldn't make the game harder, it would make it unfair and frustrating.

 

God of War doesn't do this. Which is fine in theory, but if you start doing the Muspelheim challenges then at one point you'll reach the one that asks you to not get hit. And someone had the galaxy-brained idea to put projectile-shooting enemies in it. So not only is this annoying as hell, Kratos moves like a tank and the camera is way the fuck up on his back so you can't really see what's going on around you. And enemies still shoot at you when they're off-camera. It is just dogshit game design through and through and it's dogshit in a way that is very telling to me. This is a game that looks competent enough on the surface but, when you really dig into its combat system and its various aspects, it really starts to feel like not enough thought was put into how it all fits together. And I didn't even touch on how baffling it is to have enemies that can outlevel you in a game like this. Having a regular enemy one-shot you out of nowhere is never fun. Which brings me to...

 

The Valkyrie fights. I love the Souls series so I'm not averse to challenging boss fights and it was probably just me sucking here but I kinda hated them. I stubbornly fought like four of them while I was going through the story and they felt so unfair lol. At some point I said fuck it and only came back after the main story when I had upgraded end-game gear and just fucking destroyed them. Except for the Valkyrie Queen. After like an hour of getting absolutely destroyed I decided that it just wasn't going to happen so I dropped the difficulty down to easy and got her after a few more tries. I'm getting too old for bother with unfair shit like this. I can only remember a single other time where I had to do this and it was the final boss of the DLC for Castlevania Lord of Shadows. Not exactly a flattering comparison for GoW but at least now I'm done.

 

 

Anyway, all of this isn't really an issue if you just do the main story and ignore all the end-game challenges so I don't want to sound overly negative. The game overall is really fun, especially when you start going off the beaten path and exploring the Lake of the Nine, and the main story is pretty great. Ultimately the frustrating parts were only a small fraction of that playtime and the rest of the game never overstayed its welcome so that's no small feat considering how much content there is. I'm definitely looking forward to Ragnarok.

[Thursday Next]

I really can't tell if you loved it or hated it.

 

I thought the combat was lacking a bit until I got hold of the

Spoiler

Blades of Chaos

after that I felt the combat flowed well. The axe recall is hugely satisfying and makes me want them to make a Thor game as well. I never noticed being shot from off cam. I do always appreciate when games don't do that (Jedi Fallen Order is another that does it well, storm troopers will shoot at you from off cam, but will always miss - which kinda fits in universe as well). It was new for a GoW game to have enemy levels and I remember opening one of the rift thingies and getting utterly curb stomped by a mook. It's so long since I played that I don't really remember how levels work tbh, but I do think it detracts from the "god-hood" of Kratos. I wonder if they will do it in Ragnorok or if they will drop that system since I don't recall it adding much. I'm fine with unlocking abilities and tools, but rpg style levelling doesn't fit GoW in my view.

[toxicitizen]

Lol I guess that last paragraph didn't counter-balance all that criticism as much as I thought. I did love it, I just thought the combat had some significant flaws.

 

Yeah, the Leviathan axe is a real joy to use and it kinda already felt like basically a Thor game to me hahaha. The shot from off-cam thing was really only egregious in that one "take no damage" challenge, I just found it very telling and it really validated my feelings on the combat in general. I haven't played Jedi Fallen Order but the way they handle it with stormtroopers is hilarious. I love it.

 

And I don't think they necessarily need to drop the enemy levels entirely, I'd be fine if they just made it so that you can't be so hopelessly outlevelled that they one shot you. Whenever I'd see an enemy above my level, I'd always try my luck against them and when they didn't one-shot me it usually led to some of the most satisfying and thrilling fights in the game.

[Mister Jack]

I think I remember using some kind of exploit or cheap strategy to get through that no-hit challenge but damned if I can remember anymore what it was.

[toxicitizen]

My strategy was "Fuck this, I'm coming back in the post-game when I'll be overpowered". The wave with projectile enemies was still a crapshoot but once I made it past that it was just a matter of being careful and abusing axe throws and runic attacks. Which reminds me, I could swear there are no iframes at all during runic attacks and that's another thing that I found baffling. Makes them significantly less useful than they could be in some contexts and getting stunned out of your animation feels really bullshit sometimes.